Anja Philipp-Lathan was born in Aachen Germany, right on the border of Belgium and the Netherlands, and lived there until she was about twenty-four years old. She had received a two year degree in languages and business when she decided she wanted to apply for an internship outside of Germany to further improve her international business and language knowledge. She applied to several different positions in different countries, including the UK, France and the U.S. She received a yearlong internship in Charlotte N.C at the Ben Craig Center, an economic development company affiliated with the University of Charlotte. In September of 1993, Anja arrived in the charlotte N.C for her Internship. Her original plan was to work for a year in charlotte before going back to Aachen; however, towards the end of her internship, she met her future husband, Greg Lathan. She decided to extend her internship in Charlotte and pursued work options with European firms for the time being.
In 1996, Anja decided to move from Charlotte to the Triangle, where Greg had his business. Here, she started volunteering at international nonprofits and at an art gallery in downtown Raleigh. In June of 1996, Anja got engaged to Greg. She decided to go back to Germany alone for Christmas that year to see her family.
In the New Year, Anja left for the United States to officially immigrant there; however, upon arriving in the U.S, she was questioned by the INS (immigration and naturalization services) about her visa status. She had kept her student visa and had not yet applied for a fiancé visa because she was planning on changing her status after getting married. Unfortunately, Anja got caught in a lie about her status and the INS found out that she was getting married in the U.S. She was given a choice to wait and be seen by a judge or to go back to Germany to sort out the situation. In addition to proving that her planned marriage was real, she had to wait six months to receive her temporary visa that was good for 90 days and her deadline to move to the U.S and get married.
Anja and Greg got married on August 8, 1997 with two other couples and a minister present. In 2002, Anja started the process of becoming a citizen after learning that her home country would allow her to keep her German citizenship.
